Picador Books – Part 6 – Hamsun, Handley, Hedayet, Heller, Herr, Hesse, Hoban & Hrabel

As you see from the title of this blog, I’ll be covering Picadors by authors whose names start with “H”.

First up, Knut Hamsun, a Norwegian author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920 for his epic novel Growth of the Soil.

I don’t have that book, but I do have Victoria in a Picador edition.

Max Handley is the little known author of Meanwhile and two other novels. Meanwhile is a dystopian novel wherein men and women have been separated from each other for generations and basically forgotten that the other sex exists. Men regenerate through cloning and live in an under water bubble whilst the women reproduce by pathenogenesis and occupy the land. Meanwhile follows the events of them meeting up again, after one of the men, fascinated by the species of being he discovers in girly magazines, crawls to the surface. It’s a crazy novel, very funny as well. Max Handley died in 1993 and is virtually forgotten these days.

The Blind Owl is the best known novel of Sādeq Hedāyat, an Iranian writer of poetry and novels. This is another unusual novel published by Picador. Can you imagine anyone publishing this type of book these days?

Some better known writers – Joseph Heller with Picture This, and Michael Herr’s memoir of the Vietnam War, Dispatches which was influential in the making of the films Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.

I discovered Herman Hesse in my late teens, early twenties and deeply identified with the novel Steppenwolf which identification I regard as somewhat self indulgent these days. But heck, I was younger then. I still do have my original Penguin paperback edition of that novel,which I’ll get to later. Meanwhile, here’s one of his less famous novels, Rosshalde, in a Picador edition.

Russell Hoban was one of my favourite writers way back when, though I must admit I’ve failed to keep up with his work. I still love his book The Mouse and his Child, which he signed for me when I met him in 1984.

Here is his first novel The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz and Pilgerman, both published in Picador.

And finally I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal, a Czech writer best known for writing Closely Watched Trains.

Next – more Picadors – Anna Kavan and other writers whose names begin with “K”.

General Fiction – a miscellany

I appear to have only one book by the following authors:

Carlos Fuentes – Terra Nostra
Jean Genet – Our Lady of the Flowers
Hannah Green -I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Doris Grumbach – The Missing Person

Actually I do have another Joseph Heller book somewhere, but of course Catch 22 is his most famous. It’s still a great read.

Then there are the two Irvings…

John Irving with his famous ‘Garp’ and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Shirley Jackson’s books have been out of print for decades, but I am pleased to see that her best known books have recently been reprinted in Penguin. She is an extraordinary writer and her We Have Always Lived In The Castle is my favourite of hers and also one of my all time favourite novels. I gave it to my niece at Christmas and she loved it. Merricat Blackwood is one of the most compelling literary creations of all time. My battered old paperback edition is below.

The Haunting of Hill House is one of the scariest, most suspenseful novels I have ever read. There have been several film versions of this book, but nothing beats reading the original. The Lottery is a collection of her best stories. I remember, when I was a member of a small theatrical group back in the ‘60s we performed the play based on The Lottery – I was Tessa, the victim.

Next – Jack Kerouac